Act 2, Scene 1

London. A Room in the palace.

[Enter KING EDWARD, led in sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS, HASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others.]
King Edward IV
1071 Why, so. Now have I done a good day's work:—
1072 You peers, continue this united league:
1073 I every day expect an embassage
1074 From my Redeemer, to redeem me hence;
1075 And more at peace my soul shall part to heaven,
1076 Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.
1077 Rivers and Hastings, take each other's hand;
1078 Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.
Earl Rivers
1079 By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudging hate;
1080 And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.
Lord Hastings
1081 So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!
King Edward IV
1082 Take heed you dally not before your king;
1083 Lest He that is the supreme King of kings
1084 Confound your hidden falsehood, and award
1085 Either of you to be the other's end.
Lord Hastings
1086 So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!
Earl Rivers
1087 And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!
King Edward IV
1088 Madam, yourself is not exempt from this;—
1089 Nor you, son Dorset;—Buckingham, nor you;—
1090 You have been factious one against the other.
1091 Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;
1092 And what you do, do it unfeignedly.
Queen Elizabeth
1093 There, Hastings; I will never more remember
1094 Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!
King Edward IV
1095 Dorset, embrace him;—Hastings, love lord marquis.
Marquess of Dorset
1096 This interchange of love, I here protest,
1097 Upon my part shall be inviolable.
Lord Hastings
1098 And so swear I.
[Embraces Dorset.]
King Edward IV
1099 Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league
1100 With thy embracements to my wife's allies,
1101 And make me happy in your unity.
Duke of Buckingham
1102 Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate
1103 Upon your grace
[to the queen]
Duke of Buckingham
1104 , but with all duteous love
1105 Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
1106 With hate in those where I expect most love!
1107 When I have most need to employ a friend,
1108 And most assured that he is a friend,
1109 Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
1110 Be he unto me!—this do I beg of heaven
1111 When I am cold in love to you or yours.
[Embracing Rivers &c.]
King Edward IV
1112 A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,
1113 Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
1114 There wanteth now our brother Gloster here,
1115 To make the blessed period of this peace.
Duke of Buckingham
1116 And, in good time, here comes the noble duke.
[Enter GLOSTER.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1117 Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen;
1118 And, princely peers, a happy time of day!
King Edward IV
1119 Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.
1120 Gloster, we have done deeds of charity;
1121 Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,
1122 Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1123 A blessed labour, my most sovereign lord,—
1124 Among this princely heap, if any here,
1125 By false intelligence or wrong surmise,
1126 Hold me a foe;
1127 If I unwittingly, or in my rage,
1128 Have aught committed that is hardly borne
1129 To any in this presence, I desire
1130 To reconcile me to his friendly peace:
1131 'Tis death to me to be at enmity;
1132 I hate it, and desire all good men's love.—
1133 First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
1134 Which I will purchase with my duteous service;—
1135 Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
1136 If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us;—
1137 Of you, and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,
1138 That all without desert have frown'd on me;
1139 Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales, of you;—
1140 Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen;—indeed, of all.
1141 I do not know that Englishman alive
1142 With whom my soul is any jot at odds
1143 More than the infant that is born to-night:
1144 I thank my God for my humility.
Queen Elizabeth
1145 A holy day shall this be kept hereafter:—
1146 I would to God all strifes were well compounded.—
1147 My sovereign lord, I do beseech your highness
1148 To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1149 Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,
1150 To be so flouted in this royal presence?
1151 Who knows not that the gentle duke is dead?
[They all start.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1152 You do him injury to scorn his corse.
King Edward IV
1153 Who knows not he is dead! Who knows he is?
Queen Elizabeth
1154 All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!
Duke of Buckingham
1155 Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?
Marquess of Dorset
1156 Ay, my good lord; and no man in the presence
1157 But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.
King Edward IV
1158 Is Clarence dead? the order was revers'd.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1159 But he, poor man, by your first order died,
1160 And that a winged Mercury did bear;
1161 Some tardy cripple bore the countermand
1162 That came too lag to see him buried.
1163 God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
1164 Nearer in bloody thoughts, an not in blood,
1165 Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
1166 And yet go current from suspicion!
[Enter Stanley.]
Lord Stanley (Derby)
1167 A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!
King Edward IV
1168 I pr'ythee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.
Lord Stanley (Derby)
1169 I Will not rise unless your highness hear me.
King Edward IV
1170 Then say at once what is it thou request'st.
Lord Stanley (Derby)
1171 The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;
1172 Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman
1173 Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.
King Edward IV
1174 Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,
1175 And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?
1176 My brother kill'd no man,—his fault was thought,
1177 And yet his punishment was bitter death.
1178 Who su'd to me for him? who, in my wrath,
1179 Kneel'd at my feet, and bid me be advis'd?
1180 Who spoke of brotherhood? who spoke of love?
1181 Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
1182 The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?
1183 Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury,
1184 When Oxford had me down, he rescu'd me,
1185 And said "Dear brother, live, and be a king"?
1186 Who told me, when we both lay in the field
1187 Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
1188 Even in his garments, and did give himself,
1189 All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night?
1190 All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
1191 Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you
1192 Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
1193 But when your carters or your waiting-vassals
1194 Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd
1195 The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
1196 You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
1197 And I, unjustly too, must grant it you:—
1198 But for my brother not a man would speak,—
1199 Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself
1200 For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
1201 Have been beholding to him in his life;
1202 Yet none of you would once beg for his life.—
1203 O God, I fear Thy justice will take hold
1204 On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this!
1205 Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.
1206 Ah, poor Clarence!
[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, HASTINGS, RIVERS, DORSET, and GREY.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1207 This is the fruit of rashness! Mark'd you not
1208 How that the guilty kindred of the queen
1209 Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?
1210 O, they did urge it still unto the king!
1211 God will revenge it.—Come, lords, will you go
1212 To comfort Edward with our company?
Duke of Buckingham
1213 We wait upon your grace.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1073archaic vocab
“I every day expect an embassage From my Redeemer”
An 'embassage' is an embassy or formal message: Edward says he expects a summons from Christ ('my Redeemer') calling him to die. The word frames his death as a diplomatic dispatch from heaven, fitting the kingly ceremony of the scene.
TLN 1082biblical allusion
“Take heed you dally not before your king; Lest He that is the supreme King of kings”
To 'dally' means to trifle, deceive, or waste time; here Edward warns the lords not to pretend friendship falsely. 'King of kings' is a title from Revelation and the epistles for Christ, the final judge who can see through hypocrisy. Edward is invoking divine witness to the oaths just sworn.
biblical The Sixth Commandment and self-slaughter
TLN 1112archaic vocab
“A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham”
A 'cordial' was a medicine or drink believed to strengthen the heart (Latin cor, heart). Edward calls Buckingham's vow a heart-strengthening tonic, apt because Edward is physically dying of cardiac weakness and has just forced the court to reconcile around him.
TLN 1114archaic vocab
“our brother Gloster here, To make the blessed period of this peace”
'Period' here means completion or conclusion, not a stretch of time: Buckingham says Gloucester's arrival is needed to 'make' (bring to its end) the blessed closing of the peace-ceremony. The phrasing is deeply ironic, since Richard is the man who destroyed Clarence and will destroy everyone in this room.
TLN 1124rhetorical device
“Among this princely heap, if any here, By false intelligence or wrong surmise, Hold me a foe”
Richard's speech of self-exculpation (TLN 1123-1144) is a masterpiece of performed innocence: he invites anyone with a grudge to speak, attributes every possible enmity to others' 'false intelligence' (misinformation) rather than his own actions, and ends with the line 'I thank my God for my humility.' To a knowing audience, every word is a lie — he has just had his brother Clarence murdered.
historical More's History of King Richard IIIhistorical The Vice of the morality plays
TLN 1144rhetorical device
“I thank my God for my humility”
The line is a studied climax of dramatic irony: Richard is the least humble character in the play — he has just had his own brother drowned — and he crowns a speech of fraudulent innocence by thanking God for a virtue no one in the audience believes he possesses.
historical The Vice of the morality playshistorical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 1160classical allusion
“a winged Mercury did bear; Some tardy cripple bore the countermand That came too lag”
Mercury (Greek Hermes) was the winged messenger-god of classical mythology, the fastest of the Olympians. Richard sardonically contrasts him with a 'tardy cripple': the fast order to kill Clarence was executed in full, while the 'countermand' (revocation) arrived too slowly to stop it. The contrast is grotesque wit — and a lie, since Richard ensured the countermand came too late.
TLN 1174rhetorical device
“Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death, And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave? My brother kill'd no man,—his fault was thought”
Edward's speech (TLN 1174-1204) is a long anaphora — a list of parallel questions all beginning 'Who...?' — that tears apart his own guilt for Clarence's death. The key contrast here is between Clarence, who 'kill'd no man' but was executed for thought-crime (the prophecy about 'G'), and a common servant who committed actual murder and may receive pardon.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 1193biblical allusion
“your carters or your waiting-vassals Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd The precious image of our dear Redeemer”
'Carters' are cart-drivers; 'waiting-vassals' are household servants. Edward's point is that the great lords intercede with the king for the crimes of their lowliest servants, but no one interceded for his royal brother. 'The precious image of our dear Redeemer' alludes to Genesis 1:27: humankind is made in God's image, so to kill any person is to destroy God's image — a stronger claim for Clarence, who was also a prince and God's anointed by blood.
biblical The Sixth Commandment and self-slaughterbiblical Cain and Abel: the first murder
TLN 1203historical topical
“O God, I fear Thy justice will take hold On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this”
Edward's dying fear — that God's justice will punish him, his family ('mine'), and the court ('you and yours') for Clarence's death — is the play's thesis statement for the Tudor providential view of history: sins against kin and against the divine order invite a retribution that falls on descendants as well as on the sinner. This is exactly what the play then dramatizes in Acts 3-5.
historical Richmond and the Tudor Mythhistorical The Princes in the Tower
TLN 1207rhetorical device
“This is the fruit of rashness! Mark'd you not How that the guilty kindred of the queen Look'd pale”
Richard's closing speech, delivered once Edward and the queen's allies have left the stage, is a chilling pivot: he blames Clarence's death on 'the guilty kindred of the queen' — whom he has just watched go pale — and proposes they all go comfort Edward. It is the Machiavel at his most economical: in four lines he converts his own crime into an accusation against his next targets, Rivers, Dorset, and Grey.
historical The Stage Machiavelhistorical The Vice of the morality plays